We’re excited to be working on something new this summer with Jordan Pine of SciMark.  The finished product will be available tomorrow (Monday) but Jordan has already announced what is coming on The SciMark Report.  Click here for the details!

DRMetrix recently reached a new benchmark having detected over 10 million DRTV airings in just 18 months.  The company began monitoring national cable networks in December of 2014 with plans to build a world class competitive media research system for the DRTV industry.  With the beta rollout of AdSphere™ this month, DRMetrix is now making this incredible data set available to the industry.

In May alone, DRMetrix detected over 737,000 DRTV airings, 8300 infomercial airings, 1063 new creatives, 226 new Brands, and 122 new advertisers adding to its lifetime totals of 13,000 unique DRTV creatives, 4,000 Brands, and 2,200 advertisers.

DRMetrix plans to update the statistics monthly on its website located at www.drmetrix.com and invites the industry to visit and watch a short video to learn more about AdSphere™.

For four years, DRMetrix has been building the foundation from which to bring its most ambitious product to market.  As a competitive media research system, AdSphere™ leverages game changing technology redefining this category of product for the DRTV industry.  AdSphere will be made available on limited beta release starting next week.

DRMetrix deployed a state of the art ACR monitoring system at the end of 2014 and began building the database which today powers AdSphere™.  Monitoring all DRTV spots and infomercials on leading cable networks, to date over 13,000 unique DRTV creatives have been identified and tracked across over 10 million airings.  Over 4,000 DRTV brands from over 2,200 advertisers have been identified and segmented across 122 industry categories.  As a DRTV business intelligence tool,  AdSphere™ unlocks the power of this incredible database.  DRMetrix has big plans in store for AdSphere™ and is rapidly building out the system and its capabilities.

As a beta release, we know everyone is curious how far along AdSphere™ really is and what features are available today.  DRMetrix has released a short video demonstrating the current functionality of AdSphere™ which is available by clicking here.

Please post any questions or comments.  We’d love to hear from you!

DRMetrix will begin distributing a new version of its weekly spend index™ retail ranking report for the AS SEEN ON TV industry to retailers and DRTV marketers beginning 4/18/16.  Click on the links below for a sneak preview!

DRMetrix monitors national cable networks, identifies and tracks airings for all DRTV short and long form creative using state of the art ACR and optical character recognition technologies.  The end result is the industry’s most accurate retail reporting for the DRTV industry.  DRMetrix is now detecting over 700,000 unique airings a month and has identified nearly 10,000 unique DRTV creatives across over 2,200 DRTV advertisers.

If you are a retailer, or DRTV marketer involved in the selling of AS SEEN ON TV products, contact DRMetrix for a free weekly subscription!  You can also sign up for a complimentary subscription by visiting booth 619 at the DRMA Show in San Diego week of April 25th, 2016.

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There is one undeniable thing about technology – it’s changing everything.  You may not realize it yet but Automated Content Recognition (ACR) technology is the next big  paradigm shift for the DRTV industry.  It is ushering forth a new era of transparency and AVS™ from DRMetrix is leading the way.

The ACR technology behind AVS™ tracks short and long form DRTV ads running on national cable networks.  In a relatively short amount of time, the technology has identified and cataloged 10,000 unique DRTV ads that have collectively aired over 8 million times.  Each unique creative has been assigned to one of 122 industry categories.  Each ad is also associated with one of nearly 2000 DRTV advertisers identified in the AVS™ database.

The impact of AVS™ is just beginning to be felt as early adopters begin to experiment with DRMetrix’s new groundbreaking service.  One such adopter wanted to grow their lead generation business and used AVS™ to determine the networks and ROS dayparts that were performing best for different lead generation categories.  This same customer, who has since become an ardent fan of AVS™ for its competitive media research value, only recently came to the realization that they could also use AVS™ to track their own airings.  When the customer had their “ah ha!” moment they were a little embarrassed at overlooking this significant capability of AVS™.  Now, they are planning to use AVS™ to not only track competitive airings but also their own airings.  With no need to watermark or encode your ads, AVS™ happens to be the simplest and most cost effective airings verification solution on the market.

Those using AVS™ for tracking their own airings, marvel when mere minutes after ads clear they see each airing appear in the online AVS™ system.  Users are also able to click and play back the commercial just as it aired live.  What a convenience should you ever need to confirm whether or not the correct 800 creative ran!  The AVS™ video clip includes pre and post roll so you can see a snippet of what ran before and after each ad placement.  AVS™ also takes a snapshot of the call to action frame and saves it as a thumbnail as a quick and easy way to audit your call to action.

U.S. Retailers are starting to pay close attention to DRMetrix’s new technology which delivers far more accurate weekly rankings of the top AS SEEN ON TV brands based on national cable spend.  DRMetrix has been sharing its innovative rankings with both retailers and select DRTV marketers on a complimentary basis.  In the spirit of transparency, DRMetrix  has also invited DRTV marketers to tour AVS™ and audit for themselves the creatives and airings that AVS™ has detected for their brands.  Haven’t had a chance to tour AVS™ yet?  Be sure and visit DRMetrix at booth #619 at the DRMA Convention later this month (week of April 25th) in San Diego.

“As part of our commitment to provide the most accurate AS SEEN ON TV product rankings to both the DRTV & Retail Industries, we are making available to all stakeholders a free weekly subscription to our Spend Index™ retail rankings.” announced Joseph Gray, founder of DRMetrix.  The company has been providing free weekly research to the retail industry for several months now and has recently started to offer the same to DRTV companies that are involved in selling their products through retail.  DRMetrix directly monitors the National Cable Network feeds to insure a higher level of accuracy.  Additionally, on the networks that contribute to its weekly ranking report, DRMetrix is able to segment national airings from less expensive DRTV airings that are inserted into what are known as “cue tone” ad breaks.  DRTV airings that fall into “cue tone” ad breaks are projected to be viewed by only 10% of households watching television and generally skewed to rural market viewers.  “The cue tone airings don’t drive national retail sales at the same level as true national airings”, explains Gray, “therefore, it’s imperative that we are able to segment these airings and discount them in our ranking methodology”.

DRMetrix uniquely factors in all of these considerations which assures retailers the most accurate assessment of DRTV product rankings.  DRMetrix hopes that providing this information in an open and transparent manner will help to increase the viability of the entire AS SEEN ON TV retail category.  Gray concludes, “We believe there is a strong correlation between TV spend and retail success.  Those products that generate the most consumer response and greatest media expenditures should be properly recognized so that the retail industry can prioritize them accordingly.”

Thanks Response for the recent coverage regarding AVS™  The debut article written in December was great and so is the more recent Q&A in January!

Have you ever run a DRTV campaign and didn’t get the results you expected?  This is typically followed by the nagging thought, “Maybe I’ve missed something…“.  Of course, the first thing we do is confirm that the ads really cleared.  Many of us employ ad tracking services that are supposed to answer this question.  However, all they can really tell us is that an encoding associated with our ad was picked up which falls terribly short of answering a number of critical questions such as:  Did the entire ad run or was it cut off?  Did the correct 800 number appear in the spot?  Were the video and audio levels correct?  Here’s a question you may not have thought to ask:  When the network ran my high definition ad on their standard def channel did my toll free number get cut off? 

Below are actual screen shots of a DRTV ad as shown on a standard definition channel.  As you can see, the 800 number extends past title safe and is cut off leaving consumers with no way to respond.

Fortunately, airings verification services are starting to get better.  DRMetrix has created AVS™ a system that tracks all DRTV short and long form ads running on National Cable Networks.  One of the unique aspects of AVS™ is that it also records a copy of each airing.  So, mere minutes after an ad runs, all of its details appear online as well as a video link so you can watch the ad exactly as it aired.  DRMetrix monitors National Cable Network feeds on a 24/7 basis and retains a video copy of all airings for 10 full days.  AVS™ provides airings detail on a real time basis, or in a daily file, for any creative for just $350 for an entire year!  You’ll also receive free cloud based access to the AVS™ online system where you can see all of your airings as they occur in real time with the ability to click and watch.  No encoding or replacing of air tapes is required.

Next time you are troubleshooting a DRTV campaign, and have that nagging thought, just remember all the answers are just a click away!

Hey DRMA members, if you haven’t checked out the updated Industry Research section at the DRMA’s Website yet, you’re in for a real treat!  As a DRMA member, you now have exclusive access – monthly – to the top 200 direct response TV campaigns in the U.S., plus the top 40 Spanish-language DRTV campaigns powered by DRMetrix!  Rankings are available across four industry categories: short-form products; lead generation; brand DR; and long-form campaigns.  To learn why DRMetrix’s DRTV Spend Index™ Rankings are the most accurate in the industry, click here!

By Joseph Gray

I began my career in the direct response television (DRTV) industry back in 1989. During a 22-year period, I built several successful companies on the agency and lead-generation sides of the business, which I ended up selling and exiting from in 2011.  At the time, I knew that I wanted to refocus and do something different.

I had developed a passion for DRTV research back in 2003 when I was invited to co-chair the DRTV Research Committee for the Direct Marketing Association (DMA). During this time, I discovered that much of the research data our industry relies upon is terribly inaccurate. The big television research companies have largely ignored the DRTV industry, failing to monitor infomercials and only offering limited data on DRTV spots. The smaller boutique DRTV research companies do not monitor the cable networks directly, instead receiving their signals through intermediaries, such as local cable or direct to consumer satellite.

Taking advantage of this situation, some DRTV marketers and agencies target buys on such “intermediaries,” knowing it will make their media buys appear larger. Using this approach, some DRTV brands have been awarded the No. 1 industry rank despite spending minimal dollars on national cable. This systemic problem exists because national cable networks are not being monitored directly by the majority of DRTV research companies. At DRMetrix, we believe the DRTV industry deserves better.

DRMetrix deployed its monitoring technology at the beginning of 2015 to directly monitor national cable networks — 24/7/365. Like finding a single strand of DNA, intelligent and automated technology analyzes the digital attributes of every commercial and program to find new DRTV spots and infomercials. To date, across the millions of commercials that DRMetrix’s system has analyzed, more than 500,000 DRTV airings are being identified per month.

DRMetrix also tracks ad breaks in order to determine whether spots are running in local or national breaks. This is an important distinction, because advertisers only pay an average of 10 cents on the dollar to run their spot inside of a local break on national networks. Even if you’re monitoring the national cable networks directly, you can’t deliver accurate industry rankings if you are unable to segment local from national breaks. These are just some of the unique capabilities that make DRMetrix’s DRTV Spend Index™ Rankings the most accurate in the industry.